Robots have been researched and developed extensively in recent years. Robots, such as those capable of entering and performing tasks in areas that are potentially dangerous for people, and those designed to assist and care for the elderly, for example, have received a great amount of attention.
Modern homes are often equipped with hand rails or lifts to make them more accessible for elderly persons, for example. While lifts are capable of assisting a user to sit or stand or move from one place to another in rooms such as bathrooms and bedrooms, a user's interaction with such lifts is limited since the configuration and installation location cannot easily be changed. It is for this reason that robots and apparatuses have been proposed which give elderly persons more independence by assisting them to sit or stand or move from one place to another.
One such known robot transports objects and includes a multi-jointed arm capable of lifting objects (for example, see Patent Literature (PTL) 1).
With the robot provided with a multi-jointed arm disclosed in PTL 1, the joints are controlled to secure and prevent the joints from moving when the arm of the robot lifts an object and holds the object in place. A common technique is to keep the motors from moving and secure the joints by applying voltage to the motors which drive the joints.